Who’s afraid of K-to-12?

Fear not. The K-to-12 program should be viewed, not as a threat, but as the best opportunity for Philippine publishers to grow and show off the best that they are capable of doing. In a nutshell, those were the reassuring words—in truth, an unequivocal challenge—given by Isagani Cruz, National Book Development Board governor, writer and columnist, and former education undersecretary, at the recent NBDB Kapihan dedicated to the topic that is now on everyone’s mind.

But first, banish the popular misconception that Grades 11-12 will only adopt the curriculum and the general subjects that have been brought down from the college curriculum. In a lively and interesting presentation that did not resort to “educationalese” or the jargon of the trade, practical tips were offered the publishers to help them cope with the new curriculum.

Why a challenge?

First, the curriculum is radically different from what has been used by the Department of Education in the past. Thus, all those books in the market that are claimed to be K-to-12-compliant are, in reality, not so. A telltale sign that a false claim has been made for a textbook series is the appearance of different topics in the Table of Contents alone. That would not reflect the “spiraling” method in the new curriculum. Spiraling rationalizes the new curriculum so that topics taken up in high school have their beginnings in the early grades. Every grade level then builds up on earlier learning.

A very basic example would be: If 1-10 were taken up in first grade, the second grade would then focus on 1-100, and so on and so forth.

All subjects are based on previous knowledge, previous lessons.

It also poses a challenge to teachers who can no longer remain effective teachers even if they have mastered the curriculum for their subject area for their grade or year level. The times demand that they also become familiar with the curriculum of all the K-to-12 levels.

It is a similar demand for textbook writers, a great opportunity for them to grow as they would need to have read the entire curriculum for the subject area on which they are writing a textbook. With good humor, Cruz urged the publishers to enlist young writers, saying that “our generation” can neither write for nor communicate with the youth, who never knew the Vietnam War or Edsa except as the traffic-choked highway that it is today. Textbook writers must discover how best to write books that will lure today’s young people, that would compete with the stuff bombarded by technology. Textbook writers must consider presenting content in multimedia or in CD format because merely providing this online would not make it easily accessible to areas in the country with no Internet access.

Textbooks should be elevated from being mere supplementary materials. Going beyond that will make them more marketable, not just to the DepEd but to the Asean market. Why should the DepEd be the prime target market of our publications? The public school system is, of course, a large, profitable market because of the large numbers with which it works, but should it decide not to accept the produced textbooks, these textbooks should be worthy enough to be considered by private schools and other potential buyers. Consider, too, that the public school system’s learning competencies are at the minimum level.

Lamentably, the textbooks we see in the market leave much to be desired and are often insulting to students, looking and sounding like they were produced to meet a (DepEd) deadline. Now is the time for publishers to develop textbooks and market-test them with select schools and teachers before bulk copies are printed.

Another distinct difference of the new curriculum is that the emphasis has veered away from the purely cognitive and paper-and-pencil features of the past, and now focuses on strategies or student products that show mastery of the learning. This makes it more relevant and practical for students.

There is neither mystique nor secrecy surrounding the K-to-12 curriculum. Everything, but everything, may be found on the official Department of Education website. It may not be as user-friendly as one would want it to be as yet, but everything one would need to know about

K-to-12 is all there. For instance, sample modules for teachers may be viewed in the Learning Resources Portal: reds.deped.gov.ph. The interesting thing that Cruz has noticed is that the website appears to be a work in progress, so that he, an avid DepEd site visitor and a committed K-to-12 watcher, is surprised about something new that he discovers daily.

The Senior High School curriculum structure for Grades 11 and 12 offers general subjects that ALL students must take prior to choosing any of four tracks: Academic, Sports, Arts and Design, and Technical-Vocational-Livelihood. It may indicate a potential need to publishers, except that no one can predict the number of students that will pursue a particular track.

The K-to-12 program can only mean exciting times for the publishers as it is a new and untried realm to explore.

Neni Sta. Romana Cruz (nenisrcruz@gmail.com) is chair of the National Book Development Board, a trustee of Teach for the Philippines and a member of the Eggie Apostol Foundation.